Jeffard did go on, making the occasion one of the few which seemed to justify the setting aside of indirection. "We were partners; we have been out together all summer. He has struck it rich, and has gone clean daft in the lilt of it. I can't get him sober long enough to do what may be necessary to secure the claim. The sharks are after him hot foot, and if they can succeed in soaking the data out of him, they will jump the claim before he can get it located and recorded." Bartrow laughed. "That's just like Jim: ordinarily, he doesn't drink as much whiskey in a year as most men do in a week. But if that's your only grief you can come to breakfast with me and take your time about it. Later on, when we've smoked a few lines and brought up the arrears of gossip, we'll hold a council of war and see what you're to do about the potential bonanza." "But I can't do anything; it's Garvin's, I tell you." "Well, you are partners in it, aren't you?" Jeffard had another fight with an ingrained reserve which was always blocking the way to directness and prompting him to leave the major fact unstated. "We are not partners in this particular claim. It's an old discovery of Garvin's. He drove the tunnel on it two years ago and then abandoned it. He was looking for tellurides and opened a vein of free-gold quartz without knowing what he had found." "Then it's nobody's claim, as it stands; or rather I should say it's anybody's. You--or rather Garvin--will have to begin at the beginning, just as if it were a new deal; go back and post a notice on the ground and then come out and record it. And if it's Garvin's claim, as you say, he's got to do this in person. Nobody can do it for him. You can't turn a wheel till you get hold of Jim, and that's what makes me say what I 'does.' Let's go in and eat." "But, Dick; you don't understand"-- "Yes, I do; and I happen to know a thing or two about this deal that you don't. You've got the whole forenoon before you; you are as safe as a house up to twelve o'clock. Come on." "I say you don't understand. You called it a 'potential bonanza' just now, meaning that it wouldn't make so very much difference if it were never recorded. But it's a bonanza in fact. If Rittenberger knows what he is talking about, it is the biggest strike of the year, by long odds. I don't know much about such things, but it seems to me it ought to be secured at once and at all hazards." "Rittenberger, you say?--the little Dutchman? You can bank on what he tells you, every time. I didn't know you'd been to an assayer. What is the figure?" "I don't know that. I left the sample with him last night, and was to call this morning for the certificate. But the little man bubbled over at the mere sight of it."